1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer storage. More particularly, the present invention relates to the memory-efficient storing of large number of key value pairs.
2. Description of the Related Art
A key value pair is a set of data items that contain a key, such as an account number or part number, and a value, such as the actual data item itself or a pointer to where that data item is stored on disk or some storage device. Key-value pairs are widely used in tables and configuration files. When loading large numbers of key value pairs into memory, however, memory space can quickly run out.